There are five currencies and money is the least important of the five.
The other four currencies are; time, knowledge, reputation and contacts.
Employees’ Priorities
Employees exchange their time for money. The employer pays the employee $20 per hour, and in that hour the employee earns $50 for the company. Everyone’s happy.
Entrepreneurs’ Priorities
Entrepreneurs don’t sell their time for cash. Time is much too valuable to be sold for a depreciating currency. Entrepreneurs spend their time learning and building their reputations.
Reputation is the precursor to acquiring contacts and earning money. A client earned through a good reputation could be worth millions over the next five years. You could never buy connections like that.
The 5 Currencies Explained
Time is limited. There are 24 hours in a day, and that’s it. You can’t put time into a savings account, but you can exchange it for knowledge.
Sometimes you can sell your knowledge directly, but it is more common to use what you know to grow your reputation.
As you share your knowledge and use it to help others, your reputation grows, and people start to take notice of you – Your contact list grows.
Some contacts will buy your products and increase your bank balance.
Reputation is the crucial step.
Growing Your Reputation
In 2018, you can’t make anyone buy your services. The days of push-marketing are over, and if you even try it, you come across as a snake-oil salesman.
Social Media Marketing
Social media alone will grow your rep as much as buying new socks.
You need to use your knowledge to help people in a visible format, and social media channels can be used to amplify what you are doing. However, people use Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to be sociable and they are not tuned into business mode, and only a few will click to visit your website and learn more.
Website Marketing
Your website is your crucial marketing channel. It’s where people find out about you and what you can do for them. Only on your site can interested visitors sign up to receive email. You own your site, whereas you can never own a Facebook page. Your domain name and website are the basis of your online credibility and reputation.
You can share your knowledge in blog posts to establish your credentials. Share everything you know. You will be the person who is seen as the expert, and even if someone reads your blog from end to end, you will still know more than they do.
How to Set Up Your First Website
There are three steps to getting your site live:
- Choose a URL/web address
- Choose your web hosting company and package
- Install and set up WordPress
When you have a few pages up is the time to think about social media and other promotional strategies.
1. Choosing Your Web Address
Your web address must be easy to remember. Aim for two words run together or a unique word you can use in your branding like Lyft or Viber.
Many sites let you search for available names and then sell your search data on to domain speculators so they can buy the address you are interested in an attempt to sell it to you at an inflated price.
When you are buying a domain name, you should only search for available names on a site that guarantees they will not sell on your search details.
The screenshot above is from LCN, a UK company that offers free privacy protection (You have to pay for your domain each year). If you pay for your web address for ten years, you get ten years privacy protection as well as a discount on the domain name itself.
2. Choose Your Web Hosting
Basic shared hosting will suffice initially, but choose a reputable hosting company and avoid the big names because they have poor customer satisfaction ratings. Look at InMotion or Siteground shared hosting plans for a reliable hosting package. Check out these Suitcase Entrepreneur tips on web hosting.
3. Install WordPress
Almost every host has a one-click install facility that lets you install WordPress on your domain name in a few seconds. Read this guide on setting up WordPress from Neil Patel.
The Short Version
You are no longer an employee, and you have new priorities. Your reputation in the years ahead is more important than cash in your pocket today.
You **need** a website to establish your entrepreneurial credibility and then to grow your reputation among your future clients.
You can use social channels to reach more people, but the value there is in having a website to direct those interested parties to.